Experiment All The Time, Pop Occasionally
Chart Watch UK - now with the Richard Osman seal of approval. Hello Richard, and thank you for the mention.
I don't think there are many who would disagree that Harry Styles is in his hero era. That particular moment in an artist's career where they can hardly put a foot wrong. Arguably he's been here a while, his last album Harry's House from 2022 the one which truly cemented his superstar status. But he is now at the point where he can fully exploit that to the max.
And exploit it he does. His fourth solo album Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally is his mandatory 'difficult' work. A 12-track opus that he and collaborator Kid Harpoon explore musical boundaries, tweak the nose of conventional song structure and given a huge shrug of the shoulders to any pretence of unbridled commercialism. Many artists have tried this in the past and bear the scars of the disaster. But Harry Styles is in his hero era. Meaning the new record emerges as a triumph.
As is par for the course with all such superstar releases the album debuts at No.1 with a colossal sale. And by sale we do indeed mean actual purchases. Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally posts a chart sale of over 183,000 units with fully 140,000 of those paid purchases (be they physical or digital). Although that still leaves 43,000 of those sales to be accounted for by streams - a total which even on its own would be considered immense.
It is a sale that isn't quite in Taylor Swift's stratospheric zone (she did 430,000 units of Life Of A Showgirl at the end of last year) but it is still the highest first week sales tally for a British act since Coldplay's Moon Music moved 237,000 copies in October 2024 and the highest for a male soloist since Ed Sheeran's Divide debuted at No.1 with a record sale of over 671,000 exactly nine years ago this week in 2007.
By way of comparison, Harry's House debuted in 2002 with 114,000 sales, while his first two solo albums sold around 50,000 copies each in their first week. So yes, nobody really cares how "difficult" the music is. He's in his hero era after all. And he's outsold the rest of the Top 30 albums put together.
Harry Styles' debut at the top of the Official UK Albums chart furthers a fascinating chart run. A British act has had the No.1 album in every one of the 11 chart weeks in 2026 so far, the longest such year-opening run since UK stars topped the first 15 charts of 2016.
Scream All The Time, Breathe Occasionally
Early sales flashes hinted at a potential second chart grand slam for Harry Styles, occupying the top three rungs of the singles chart to go alongside his No.1 album. In the end, he falls some way short, but he can at least claim the official chart double for the second time in his solo career, as the album's second cut American Girls debuts at No.1 in its own right. His second No.1 single of the year, it is of a rather more digestible length than Aperture, clocking in at a relatively three and a half minutes. But it still owes a great deal musically to its predecessor, another lo-fi adventure in atmosphere but which by the end has turned into something resembling a Sombr track.
It is his fourth solo No.1 single following Sign Of The Times (2017), As It Was (2022) and the aforementioned Aperture. And as is compulsory we have to acknowledge the five times he was No.1 as a member of One Direction, an era of his career that seems all the quainter as time goes by. He joins George Michael and Robbie Williams as artists who have successfully left their pop days trailing as a distant memory. In a week of many "first time since…" records, Harry Styles is the first act to have two different No.1 singles in the first three months of a calendar year since Ariana Grande back in 2019.
Peak All The Time, Drop Occasionally
Harry's other two chart singles are Aperture, which reverses its steadily decline to jump back to No.4, while Ready Steady Go becomes the other new cut from the album to chart at No.3. Almost needless to say there are countless others all starred-out by rule across the rest of the singles chart. Combined with the existing blizzard of Olivia Dean hits that have also been clogging up the unfiltered list, it means this week is perhaps one of the best examples for some time of the three-per-primary artist rule which keeps the charts a little tidier than they might have been.
The streaming numbers of the album's lead tracks reveal a curious trend. Aperture is Track 1 on the album with American Girls Track 2. Yet in terms of streaming numbers their positions are reversed. Part of this is down to the fact that American Girls had the above brand new video for everyone to consume, but you can also attribute this to a heady mix of streamers skipping the opener to get straight to the new material and those intent on listening to the album in full from the start.
The Weekly Olivia
Harry Styles being No.1 was by no means a given. American Girls posts 64,056 chart units, but Rein Me In was only just behind with over 61,000 to its name as well. And you do get the feeling that Styles' numbers won't necessarily hold up in Week 2. Sam and Livvy are probably heading back to the summit next week. And our obligatory weekly check in with Man I Need shows that just for a change even without Harry Styles disrupting the market Man I Need would not be de facto No.1 this week, its ACR-less sales total would only have qualified it to be No.2 behind Rein Me In. The epic hit is still No.10 this week, clinging on to enjoy Top 10 status for the 26th of its 30 weeks on the singles chart to date.
Bigger Badder Dom
The pressure from the two new Harry Styles hits at the top end naturally puts some downward pressure on the chart positions of many existing hits. Making those that climb even more notable. It has thus been a good week for Dominic Fike, both of whose hits make forward progress. The eight year old single Babydoll rises to No.13 while the more recently released White Keys now joins it in the Top 20 with a jump to No.19.
We also need to make time to acknowledge the second wind of Tame Impala's Dracula. Peaking at No.21 just in time for Halloween last October it returned for another chart wander around the lower regions just after Christmas. In the last few weeks however it has gained an impressive second wind - largely thanks to the release of a new mix last month which adds vocals from Blackpink's Jennie. This week the combined streams of the solo and duet versions propel the track to a new high of No.17 to give the Australian star his first ever Top 20 hit single.
Put The Spotify Down Grandad
The ever eclectic nature of the UK charts means there is also now room for three golden oldies in the Top 20. Zara Larsson's Lush Life (No.11) and Milky's Just The Way You Are (No.14) are now joined by the returning Into The Groove by Madonna, the 1985 No.1 hit barging its way to No.18 as it catches alight for a new generation thanks to online virality. Originally considered such a throwaway it was never released as a single in her native America, relegated to the b-side of Angel. Only in Europe was it a proper hit, tying in with its brief appearance in the movie Desperately Seeking Susan.
And while on the subject of oldies, (When You Gonna) Give It Up To Me by Sean Paul featuring Keyshia Cole is also up, this time to No.30 to surpass the No.31 it first scaled back in 2006.
Bella Kay's iloveitiloveitiloveit tumbles to No.3 this week, although that is still impressive in the face of the Styles onslaught. But she can now too boast two simultaneous Top 40 hits as The Sick moves to a new peak of No.33. Stand by for a third - Steady is now at No.49.
Choosin' To Be Happy Here
Two places below her the extraordinary chart run of Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas continues. The recently deposed US No.1 single is at No.35 for the fifth straight week. Something you cannot engineer, at least not by being anything other than startlingly consistent in the teeth of the rest of the market. Five weeks is the most any record has ever spent in any position outside the Top 10. The first to achieve the feat was Looking For Clues by Robert Palmer which was No.33 for 35 days at the end of 1980 . Although as any historian will tell you that's a slight conceit as one of those was during the period over Christmas and new year at a time when no chart was compiled and the record books simply duplicate the one from the week before. The only other single to legitimately spend five weeks in the same 11-40 chart position is Woman by Doja Cat which spent five straight weeks at No.14 in September and October 2021. The track then rose one place to break the sequence and peak at No.13 before returning for a further fortnight at 14. Honourable mention must also go to Rule The World by Take That, a No.2 hit in late 2007 but which during its extended chart burn-out spent five consecutive weeks at No.83 during May and June the following year.
Finally, in the category of trivia questions you will never get asked, who is the all-time king of the non-mover? It is arguably Johnnie Ray who has two unique record-holding singles. His 1954 hit Such A Night remains to this day the track that has spent the longest holding at No.2: 8 weeks, although these came after its solitary week at the top. This came a year after he duetted with Doris Day on Let's Walk That A-Way which enjoyed(!) seven consecutive weeks at its No.4 peak.
